From resistance towards invisibility

Catherine de Lorenzo and Juno Gemes

Anthropology & Photography No. 3 First published 2016

Cover image: The March for Truth & Justice , La Parouse, 1988, © Juno Gemes

ISSN 2397-1754 ISBN 978-0-900632-45-7 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. De Lorenzo and Gemes – From resistance towards invisibility

Inspired by Aboriginal activism of the 1970s, a for the Arts and the establishment of its all- small group of non-Indigenous photographers indigenous Aboriginal Arts Board (AAB), where worked closely with Indigenous people, ‘Aboriginals [were] given full responsibility for their culture and struggles, making them developing their own programs in the arts’ empathetically visible for the first time. This (Aboriginal Arts Board 1973), and even the Prime cracked open the barriers of invisibility, silence Minister was reported as saying that ‘Aboriginal and negative imaging surrounding the realities art should be used to inspire social protest in the of Aboriginal life. Informed insider images cities’ (Mendelssohn 2013). appeared in exhibitions and publications. These In seeking to make explicit some of the activist photographers, working collaboratively transitional activities that helped bring about the with Aboriginal leaders in communities and rapid transformation of Australian photography towns, created images that were enthusiastically by so many Indigenous photographers, our used by Aboriginal people and helped change the purpose is not just to augment existing histories consciousness of the nation. Our paper examines but to draw attention to some of the healing this history and asks why these historic images narratives developed by highly skilled and are overlooked by some scholars and art museum committed photographers engaged in creating exhibitions. Australia’s visual history during this seminal Most photographic histories addressing period of dramatic change. Australian Indigenous issues and contemporary Our paper is informed by multiple research photography begin their accounts in the mid strategies. The authors bring together the eighties with the landmark NADOC’86 Exhibition perceptions of an activist photographer and of Aboriginal and Islander Photography an academic researcher on Indigenous photo (Ennis 2007:41–50; Gellatly 2000:285–6; representation during this period. Memory Jones 2011:204–6) – although some literature informs this paper, but does not frame it. We does exist that intimates a longer tradition of have conducted archival research on relevant photography produced for domestic purposes exhibition goals and critiques, and where (Aird 1993; Lee 2000; Macdonald 2003:225– documents are wanting, we interviewed relevant 42). This paper argues that the 1986 starting date protagonists.1 Our understanding of the period is is problematic because it implies that Indigenous informed by photo-historiography, as well as by photography suddenly landed fully formed on more recent theoretical perspectives that seek the art-exhibition scene from virtually nowhere. to throw new light on the period. It is important Missing from these photo histories is an analysis to state that the oversights we note in curatorial of a significant body of work developed by non- and historical discourse are not driven by self- Indigenous photographers who worked closely interest. Our goal in revisiting the 1970s and early alongside Indigenous people to inform the 80s is to draw attention to strategies adopted Australian nation about the struggles, activism by a small number of dedicated photographers, and achievements that were transforming including outstanding practitioners such as Jon Indigenous lives. The 1970s had seen the Rhodes, Wesley Stacey and others, to put their introduction of momentous cultural reforms 1 De Lorenzo corresponded with Bruce Hart (11–16 March by the Whitlam Labor Government (1972–5), 2015), Peter Kennedy (14 March 2015) and Linda Burney including the overhaul of the Australia Council (29 May 2015).

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Figure 1 Left: Installation of After the Tent Embassy, 1982–3, here seen at Wooden Plaza, , 1983. © Juno Gemes. Right: cover for After the Tent Embassy: Images of Aboriginal History in Black and White Photographs, cover image ©Penny Tweedie, Sydney, Valadon Publishing, 1983. photographic skills to the service of Indigenous rights but also in non-Indigenous consciousness struggles for self-determination. As Peter during the last half century.’ (pers. comm. to Sutton has since reflected, the ‘old rights-based Gemes, 17 April 2014). The visual records of this progressivism’ of the period has now well and movement exist because of the photographers truly gone (Sutton 2008:147). We contend that it who worked by invitation with Indigenous people would be a shame to allow shifting paradigms of around the country, photographing upon request cultural and Indigenous studies to displace this and contributing in any other way they could. seminal period of the larger narrative. Significantly, a few of the photographers were anthropologists (Diane Bell, John von Sturmer), Resistance and their works reflect a time when the practice The photography exhibition After the Tent of anthropology was being transformed, with Embassy (November 1982) was an event that researchers documenting new economic and celebrated ten years of Indigenous activism for cultural structures as well as land-rights self-determination and land rights following claims for the courts. Among the professional the erection of a Tent Embassy on the lawns of photographers – including Penny Tweedie, Juno Parliament House, Canberra on 26 January 1972 Gemes, Wes Stacey, Jon Rhodes, Elaine Pelot- (Foley et al. 2013), and the election later that year Kitchener, Lee Chittick and Michael Gallagher of a reformist government that was responsive – perhaps only Tweedie would have described to these demands. Anthropologist John von herself as a professional photojournalist. These Sturmer has described the ensuing Aboriginal visual-advocacy photographers were drawn to movement as ‘the Civil Rights story in Australia. some of the charismatic Aboriginal leaders and It underpins major changes not only in Indigenous culture makers and to the current realities that

2 De Lorenzo and Gemes – From resistance towards invisibility gripped them. At the time there were few outlets for publishing photographs sympathetically documenting land-rights struggles. There were occasional images in the mainstream press such as Nation Review (Melbourne, 1972–81) and The National Times (Sydney, 1971–86), but some community presses accepted images – such as Land Rights News: A Newsletter for Aboriginals and Their Friends. (Darwin, Northern Land Council July 1976 –August 1985), Aboriginal Land Rights Support Group Newsletter (Leichhardt, Sydney, June 1979– June 1985) and the more glossy Identity magazine (various places, 1971–1982) – though they rarely acknowledged the photographers. However AIM: Aboriginal-Islander-Message (Glebe, Sydney, 1979– 82) regularly published work by Gemes and Pelot- Kitchener, as did mainstream newspapers on occasion.2 In bringing together the work of many photographers working with communities from around the nation, both the exhibition and the post-exhibition publication (Langton 1983; see Figure 1) for After the Tent Embassy identified all photographers by name (although most archival images had yet to await research that might identify the subjects). It seemed less important to note whether the contemporary pictures were Figure 2 Martin Sharp, Art Sale for Land Rights, by professional photographers, anthropologists Paddington Town Hall, Sydney, 1982. or other fieldworkers, for significant diferences were near impossible to spot: the informality of interest here is to look at the reception and legacy many images conveyed an energy that resonated of the exhibition throughout the 1980s and today. with the political impulse for change. Each of After the Tent Embassy was one of three the contemporary photographers advocated the Apmira3 (an Arrernte word for ‘land’) exhibitions aspirations of the land-rights movement. Our held in Sydney in November 1982. The larger 2 The first Indigenous newspaper was Koori Bina: exhibition, Art Sale for Land Rights (Figure 2), A Black Australian News Monthly (January 1977–March with works by over 200 Indigenous and non- 1978), produced by the Black Women’s Action Group Indigenous artists including photographers, was under Roberta Sykes. It was absorbed by AIM (1979–82). a fundraiser for the , Kimberley Newspapers such as Koori Mail (1991 onwards) and National and North Queensland Land Councils (Apmira Indigenous Times (2002–15) came much later. To ensure coverage of the 1982 Commonwealth Games Action 3 Apmira was a land-rights support group largely run by Committee, Tweedie secured a commission from Newsweek non-Aboriginals. Two Apmira exhibitions are discussed and Gemes from the Sydney Morning Herald and AIM. now, the third, later.

3 De Lorenzo and Gemes – From resistance towards invisibility archives). After the Tent Embassy was conceived of as a ‘documentary survey of photographs tracing the dispossession of Aboriginals from their land, from the earliest records until the present’ (Anon. 1982:60), and although by this time photographic galleries were emerging in Australian cities, this exhibition, which toured to four other venues, was pitched at community spaces.4 Thanks to the image edit, reinforced by a hard-hitting text by Marcia Langton revealing history from an Aboriginal standpoint, it became obvious even to the untrained eye that the oppressed people seen in colonial and assimilationist photographs5 were now claiming their history and fighting for their rights. For viewers in the south-eastern states used to ethnographic images of people from the distant north, the surprising element in the exhibition was the number of urban Koories who not only lived in the cities but were also well connected to communities around the nation. A ground- swell of leaders was running new Aboriginal organizations such as medical services, housing cooperatives, radio stations and dance schools,6 as well as actively working to bring about reform in land tenure, educational services and prisons, as was the case with Mum Shirl (Shirley Colleen Figure 3 Mum Shirl (Mrs Shirley Smith) Town Hall Smith, Figure 3). Because mainstream audiences Sydney, 1988. © Juno Gemes. 4 Immediately after its opening at the Australian Centre for Photography, After the Tent Embassy was installed had seen so few images of Indigenous enterprise at the Bondi Pavilion, a surf club that in 1975 had been and activism, one critic saw the exhibition as ‘an converted into a multi-arts centre opened by Prime important educational resource for all Australians’ Minister . It later toured to Northcote Town (Maloon 1982:9). Here could be seen evidence of Hall, Melbourne (December 1982), the Wollongong Regional a new and exciting Australian cultural landscape. Art Gallery (February 1983) and Wooden Plaza Shopping Centre in the national capital, Canberra (March 1983). If ‘the easiest and most “natural” form of racism 5 This early 1980s negative perception of the colonial in representation is the act of making the other archive, if not the assimilationist images, has since been invisible’ (Langton 1993:24), then After the Tent contested by Jane Lydon (2005, 2012). Embassy proved a powerful corrective: here 6 For example, the Aboriginal Medial Service, Aboriginal Legal Service, Aboriginal Housing Company, Radio images and text focused the eye, and prodded Redfern and Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre (now the mind to reflect on issues facing Aboriginal NAISDA), Black Theatre. communities around the nation.

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Figure 4 Percy Mumbler and Kevin Cook, Land Right Action, Sydney, 1981. © Juno Gemes.

Figure 5 Land rights march from Legal Service Redfern to Parliament, Sydney, 1981. © Juno Gemes.

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Figure 6 Essie Cofey (Bush Queen), Bundeena, 1978. Figure 7 Countrymen, greeting before a ceremony, © Juno Gemes. Mornington Island, 1978. © Juno Gemes.

The key diference between the old and new photographers – recognized that ‘photographs images lay in the commissioning process: for can communicate from within one culture to the first time positive collaborative images were another’ (Gemes 2003:86). Together, the images produced. The contemporary images were by did more than document particular people, places photographers who made choices to engage with and political activism. To anyone who looked communities and challenge mainstream society. closely, the contemporary images demonstrated By 1982 Aboriginal marches for land rights and what would now be called relational aesthetics, self-determination, and against government and a mutuality so missing from the earlier corporate paternalism, were familiar issues in objectified images. Having built relationships the local presses. Photographers were invited with Aboriginal people, leaders and activists, to record political rallies and marches (Figures the photographers saw their work as subjective; 4 and 5). Less familiar were the images about their intent was advocacy and cross-cultural these and other events that were commissioned understanding. These were no ‘fly-in, fly-out’ not by the newspaper editors but by the photographers. Their experience of collaborative Aborigines themselves. In place of mob anger, work, created in slow time, Koori time, set their After the Tent Embassy showed an alternative work apart from the imperial modalities of visual repertoire in which people, individuals and fast non-relational photojournalism. Tweedie groups, were determined and buoyant (Figures 6 and Gemes also worked with the editors of the and 7). Everyone on the production side of the associated exhibition publication (Langton 1983) exhibition – the curatorial team (photographer to ensure that the publisher deposited copies into Wes Stacey and artist Narelle Perroux conducted each home-community library, so that all the the image search; Marcia Langton, already a people represented in the publication could see major contributor to land-rights claims, yet the acknowledgement of their history. Whether still a student, helped make the final selection encountering the exhibition directly or via the and wrote the pithy text), the communities, the book in a library, community centre or at home,

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Figure 8 Peaceful Protest before The Commonwealth Games, Brisbane 1982. © Juno Gemes.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous viewers could Protest Committee was non-violent resistance see that self-determination, the driving concept to racism. Holding placards or addressing the behind so much Indigenous activism at the time, crowds, the leaders of the estimated 10,000 was given photographic expression. marchers are shown standing up for their rights An example of a particularly recent event (Figure 9). Gemes and Tweedie joined the march included in Tent Embassy was the Commonwealth as participant photographers; it was a moment Games in Brisbane (30 September–9 October to fully exploit photography’s potential to both 1982), where Aboriginal and Islander Australians document events and critique society through from around the country came to Brisbane powerful image-making. Each photographer to expose continuing racism and oppression instinctively understood the need for an insider’s throughout Australian society and especially in perspective that might act as a corrective to Queensland (Tweedie 1982). With the ban on lazy journalism that did the state government’s street marches, however, there were hundreds bidding. When Gemes took her photographs arrested every day (Davies 2012; Figure 8). As of the illegal land-rights marches to the picture every Indigenous spokesperson made clear editor of Sydney Morning Herald, he baulked at in the documentary film The Whole World is publishing them, saying: ‘it’s clear what side Watching (King 1982), the goal of the Black you are on’. Gemes agreed: ‘This is no time for

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is that it ‘exposes the spurious truth claims to impartiality of patriarchal [in this case, mainstream] knowledge production’ (Moreton- Robinson 2013:335), and in so doing would appear to extend the relatively individualistic impulse behind what, in photographic theory, was known as ‘concerned’ photography (Capa 1972). To the extent that many of the contemporary photographers in After the Tent Embassy spent extended periods of time building relationships with Indigenous people, and when on site were able to record people, places and moments of significance to the community, their images were seen as producing new insights/ knowledge grounded in people’s lived experience – consistent with standpoint theory. As the visual evidence shows, the photographers were activists every bit as much were the Indigenous people with whom they collaborated. One account on imagery of the civil rights movement in America noted that photographs were ‘artistic expressions and instruments for organizing. Like the justly famous freedom songs of the movement, they were aids to understanding feelings and strategies, to cementing solidarity, Figure 9 Lionel Fogerty leads an illegal march, Land and to spreading the passion.’ (Kasher 1996:16). Rights Before Games, Brisbane, 1982. © Juno Gemes. Precisely the same could be said of the archives created and used by photographers engaged in impartiality. Your photographers are neither the Aboriginal movement of the 1970s and 80s. impartial nor informed about the tactics of non- In 1983 the Canberra Times (3 July:16) (which, violent resistance.’ as it happens, had posted sympathetic editorials Because photographers working closely on the Brisbane marches) carried an article with Indigenous people recognized the need outlining the many research projects supported for partiality and subjectivity, it might now be by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies seen that they were inadvertent advocates of (AIAS).7 It noted that the two exhibitions, After standpoint theory, though such an intellectual the Tent Embassy and Aboriginal Communities framework had yet to be named by feminists of the ACT (Australian Capital Territory), both (Harding 2004) and Indigenous scholars (e.g. of which had toured in the previous twelve Moreton-Robinson 2013; Nakata 2007). The months, were ‘seen by more than 100,000 reason standpoint theory may well be a useful 7 Now AIATSIS (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and construct for understanding this material, Torres Strait Islander Studies).

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people’. If only half that figure was for Tent Embassy then the audience was significant. Certainly, the immediate critical response was positive. Photographer and critic Mark Hinderaker (1982) co-examined After the Tent Embassy with two concurrent solo exhibitions by two of the most prolific artists involved in it: Gemes’s We Wait No More8 (Hogarth Galleries, 5–26 November) and Tweedie’s Photographs 1966–1982 (ACP, 3–28 November). Tweedie’s photographs spanned sixteen years and, as Figure 10 shows, they range from unemployed families in overcrowded houses in Glasgow to Bengali refugees to overcrowded temporary accommodation for itinerant Aboriginal workers in Wee Waa, New South Wales. Gemes’s poster/ catalogue for We Wait No More (Figure 11) shows that it was a joint Hogath Galleries and Apmira exhibition dedicated to ‘Men’s Culture, Women’s Culture, Identity, Politics, Land, Survival’, with an observation on the verso by essayist George Alexander that ‘Unities are not found in persons but in group connections and disconnections’, and the artist herself quoting the activist poet Kath Walker/Oodgeroo Noonuccal: ‘I don’t blame you for the past but I hold you accountable for the present and for the future’ (Alexander and Gemes 1982). Hinderaker tackled the solo exhibitions first, pinpointing the diference between outsider photojournalism that reflects mainstream biases (Tweedie) and ‘“participant observer” [images with] the beginnings of structured, meaningful cross-cultural visions’ (Gemes). He understood the curatorial intent behind After the Tent Embassy as a ‘compelling visual polemic [presenting] aspects of the Aboriginal experience in Australia … racial Figure 10 An Australian Centre for Photography conflict, massacres, assimilation, preservation of 1982 exhibition poster: Penny Tweedie, Photographs 8 Taken from a speech by Gary Foley, National Aborigines 1966–1982, image courtesy and copyright the Australian Day, Sydney, 1982. Gemes’s photographs were exhibited Centre for Photography archives. alongside paintings by Yolgnu elder, Wandjuk Marika.

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Marika, a founding member of the Aboriginal Arts Board in 1973 and its chairman for five years from 1975, wrote the catalogue foreword ‘for Aboriginal people, my people’, but also so that others would ‘please recognize Aboriginal people in Australia’ (Langton 1983:3). Indeed the AAB provided a publishing subsidy for the catalogue. The AIAS saw the exhibition as

a statement by us about our Aboriginality which since colonisation has been under threat… [It] explains why we have a strong sense of identity, unity, and why we want real land rights. The statement is what every black person wants to say. (AIAS 1983:30)

At this time there were no Aboriginal photographers taking politicized images. This was extraordinary, given that in 1957 Ronald and Catherine Berndt had argued for Aboriginal art to be seen as contemporary (Berndt 1957), and that in 1981 Bernice Murphy in the first Figure 11 We Wait No More, poster for Juno Gemes’ Perspecta show included Aboriginal art as first exhibition, Hogarth Galleries Sydney + Bituman contemporary Australian art (Murphy 1981). River Gallery, Canberra, 1982 © Juno Gemes. Contemporary Aboriginal art was included in the broader Apmira exhibition, but not in the culture and cultural identity, and the pursuit of touring component, After the Tent Embassy. social, economic and political justice through land In 1982 the only Aboriginal professional rights … [which] every Australian with a concern photographer was Mervyn Bishop. Australia’s for national identity should make an efort to see’ first Aboriginal press photographer, winner of (Hinderaker 1982:8). the Australian Press Photographer of the Year It is indisputable that After the Tent Embassy in 1974, and photographer for the Department had a lot of Indigenous input through a dialogic of Aboriginal Afairs in Canberra (1974–9). process: the catalogue lists participants from Before returning to the Sydney Morning Herald forty-one communities (Langton 1983:2). Copies until 1986, Bishop had chosen not to engage with of the exhibition panels show Marcia Langton’s the Aboriginal movement of the 1970s: ‘I didn’t commentary as hand-written, adding authority get involved, I stayed on the very edge.’ (Bishop and afect to her use of the first person plural 1994:84). Efectively, there were no Indigenous when she lets the audience know what ‘we’ do in professional photographers working with the ‘our’ lives (Apmira 1982). Yolgnu elder Wandjuk Aboriginal movement in the 1970s and early 80s,

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Figure 12 Aboriginal photographers, NADOC exhibition, 1986. © William Yang, courtesy Stills Gallery, Sydney.

although from the late 1970s photo workshops the above-mentioned publications and the 1982 were run by Lee Chittick on the NSW south exhibition. They also introduced new modes of coast, Jon Rhodes at Halls Creek, NT, and Gemes representation that critiqued the old stereotypes in Mornington Island, QLD. and examined identity. Evidently, they too By 1986 the gains of the Aboriginal activism were committed to a practice of thoughtful movement were evident. Ten photographers photography, but their modus operandi were – Mervyn Bishop, Brenda L. Croft, Tony Davis, diferent. Extending the gains of fifteen years Ellen Jose, Daryn Kemp, Tracey Mofatt, Michael of activism, the NADOC photographers not only Riley, Chris Robinson, Terry Shewring and Ros produced collaborative portraits but used their Sultan (Figure 12) – in the NADOC’86 Exhibition art-school education to enlarge photographic of Aboriginal and Islander Photography showed vocabulary with great flair and innovation. that one exhibition could cover diverse approaches In keeping with some experimental and to Indigenous photography, including activist provocative Indigenous urban-art exhibitions politics, history, identity and high art.9 Some (Johnson and Johnson 1984; Rafel and Watson of the 1986 NADOC photographers built on the 1986), NADOC’86 launched a lively mix of wit, activist land-rights imagery of the kind found in political gravitas and aesthetic panache that quickly emerged as the hallmark of Indigenous 9 There is no catalogue for the exhibition, but see Howell photography. These qualities have meant that 1986. the list of curated exhibitions on Indigenous

11 De Lorenzo and Gemes – From resistance towards invisibility photography is sizeable (Croft 2012; Gellatly dozens of individuals photographed had made a 2000), with recent touring exhibitions such as significant contribution to reshaping political and Making Change giving it pride of place (Fenner cultural life, and their cumulative humanity, what et al. 2012). Audiences, at least in Australia, Sayers identified as a ‘collective consciousness’, recognize and enjoy the layered historical and was in such stark contrast to the mean- cultural references. spiritedness pervading the Howard government For the record, subsequent exhibitions at the time. Continuing the collaborative tradition, of activist photography centred on social- in 2013 Jagath Dheerasekara, with backing justice issues, though relatively few in number, from Beyond Nuclear Initiative and Amnesty have been curated by Indigenous and settler International, worked with the Manuwangku photographers. For example, in 1988 Indigenous (Northern Territory) traditional owners on an poet/playwright/activist Kevin Gilbert included exhibition in an attempt to prevent the dumping of ten photographers – Wayne Barker, Iris Clayton, nuclear waste on traditional lands (Manuwangku Brenda L. Croft, Kathy Fisher, Kevin Gilbert, et al. 2013). Throughout this period there have Alana Harris, Ellen José, Bulprinda Mununghurr, been occasions when Indigenous and non- Tracy French and Tjanara Williams – in Inside Indigenous photographers work together to Black Australia. For Gilbert, the images of protest support activist groups, such as the recent The and survival showed ‘the efects of that great Fire Burns On: 12 Months of Life at the Redfern canker, injustice’ and the exhibition as a whole Tent Embassy, through the Eyes of a Diverse centred on the curatorial intent that ‘there can Group of Artists (The Rocks Discovery Museum be no reconciliation without justice … integrity’ exhibition, May–June 2015). With the exception (Gilbert 1988:1–2). In 2003 the National Portrait of Proof, however, such exhibitions remain Gallery in Canberra explored the idea of social under the radar of mainstream curators and art portraiture through Gemes’s Proof: Portraits institutions. Like Tent Embassy, the majority are from The Movement 1978–200310 (Gemes billed as community activities, though that is not 2003), an exhibition that reminded one critic of to deny their photographic and political polish. how photography can explore ‘the tension and the drama on one hand, and the genuine will Invisibility for reconciliation on the other’ (Bojic 2003:20). At the time of the NADOC’86 exhibition ‘Recording these actions on film,’ noted Gamilaroi Geofrey Batchen interviewed Tracey Mofatt historian and film-maker Frances Peters-Little, for Photofile magazine. She wryly commented on ‘provides us with so much more than words. the state of the discourse in Australia, which she It provides us with a face, an impression and a found ‘overly cautious’ and frankly ‘annoying’ humanity that underpins the rhetoric of the time.’ (Batchen and Mofatt 1986:26). Mofatt seemed (2003:14). Curator Andrew Sayers saw the work to be referring to a proclivity towards description as ‘quite clearly and unambiguously an engaged rather than critical analysis in writings on body of portraiture’ (Bennie 2003:12). Each of the Indigenous photography, but we would argue that her observation was prescient in relation to 10 Proof toured eight major venues around the country, as well as the Kluge Rhue Aboriginal Art Museum at the ongoing curatorial and historical critiques of the University of Virginia USA (2006), before concluding its 1980s. To this day, many curatorial and historical tour at the Museum of Sydney in 2008. surveys of the period appear overly cautious in

12 De Lorenzo and Gemes – From resistance towards invisibility acknowledging non-Indigenous photographers, law, or no law. To commit yourself financially…’ lest it be inferred that to do so might somehow (Coombs et al. 1979:3). Although various scholars diminish the acknowledged achievements of the have invoked the concept of incommensurability Indigenous photographers. For instance, in her between ‘Indigenous ways of being in the land book Photography and Australia, Helen Ennis, a … [and settlers’ claims] for possession of the leading curator and academic who is more mindful land’ (Haggis 2004:54, referencing Moreton- than most of the impact of Indigenous-settler Robinson), there have been non-Indigenous issues on Australian culture and photography, supporters of land-rights claims who sought only credits Aboriginal photographers as to breach this chasm by supporting Indigenous developing ‘new representational codes based claimants when possible – through listening, on an engagement with Aboriginal people as through speaking up for Indigenous rights individuals in control of their own lives’ (Ennis within their own circles, through advocacy; and 2007:41); selected non-Indigenous practitioners through photography. As we have seen, artists in the field are mentioned only in a footnote. in their hundreds donated works as fundraisers Another example is Jonathan Jones’ 2011 for land-rights groups through agencies such essay ‘Picturing self-determination: the use of as Apmira – as they do to this day for annual photography by Australian Indigenous artists’. fundraisers for Aboriginal-run galleries such Jones, a renowned Indigenous installation artist as Boomalli in Sydney. It could be argued that whose work with light usually involves neon photographers were in a privileged position tubes rather than cameras, proposes that it is amongst artists because of their ability to provide Indigenous photographers who can best capture visual evidence of political struggles, pride and ‘the relaxed and comfortable subject’ (Jones achievements. Aboriginal activists recognized 2011:206). This eclipsing of history in favour those committed photographers searching for of Aboriginal-only empathetic representations ways to communicate, support and advocate the of Indigenous communities and issues has ideals of their struggles through picture making, remained the pattern in most writings. We would and brought them on board. argue that these kinds of arguments would be But the 1982 exhibitions also showed that strengthened by a more subtle comparison of Aboriginal innovations throughout the 70s in Indigenous and non-Indigenous photographs in Aboriginal dance, theatre, painting and other art public collections. These stories are deserving of forms were yet to be manifested in photography. more attention lest, in the words of Edwards and The absence of Indigenous photographers in Mead (2013:20), they become ‘another form of After the Tent Embassy did not pass unnoticed. disavowal and aphasia’. Some white photographers had begun working In the 1970s and 80s Indigenous people took closely with young black photographers, some on the political and cultural education of white of whom were also enrolled in photography society. There were settler individuals eager to classes and art schools. A few quick stories, all redress the ignorance that underpinned lingering interconnected, demonstrate this point. Various concepts of terra nullius (empty land) and to photographers strategized to ensure the transfer respond to the challenges put by poet Kevin of skills. In 1982/3 Gemes recalls securing Gilbert to ‘take up your responsibility… [have] the support via AAB Chairman, Chicka Dixon, to courage … to march. To stand against a wrong run a seminal Koori Photographers Workshop,

13 De Lorenzo and Gemes – From resistance towards invisibility and asked the more experienced teacher, Bruce in the touring exhibition Making Change (2012 Hart, to run it at the ’s Tin Beijing, 2013 Sydney), curated by Felicity Fenner Sheds;11 A significant result of activities such and Brenda L Croft (University of New South as these was the inclusion of two Indigenous Wales) and Kon Gouriotis (Australian Centre for photographers, Ian Craigie and Michael Riley, Photography) in Sydney. Making Change looked in Koori Art ’84 (Johnson and Johnson 1984). back over four decades to the Whitlam years, Another instance of cross-cultural collaboration when Australia opened new diplomatic relations was when photographer/video artist, Geof with China, renewed support for Indigenous Weary, also at the Tin Sheds, received funding Australians and ofered unprecedented support from the Australia Council’s Art and Working for all the arts, including photography (Fitzgerald Life program for an oral-history and photo- 2012). Apart from Merv Bishop’s Prime Minister archival research project focused on ‘Aboriginal Gough Whitlam Pours Soil into Hand of Traditional and Industrial’ presence since the 1930s in the Landowner , Northern Territory (1975), nearby Redfern area (Pearse 1984; Rogers 1985; the other images, all by outstanding Indigenous Tin Sheds 1985). A young Tracey Mofatt was photographers and digital-media artists, were hired as a researcher, successfully applied to strangely disconnected from the purported the AAB for funds (Australia Council 1985) exhibition thematic of honouring Whitlam and helped put the findings into an exhibition and understanding his legacy. Non-Indigenous that toured several locations. Our final story photographers, to whose images we turn when of collaboration, and the one that rightfully trying to understand the transformations in gets much historical credit, is of when Mofatt Australian art and culture during the Whitlam convinced gallery owner Ace Bourke in 1986 that years, were not included, with the result that an all-Aboriginal photo exhibition was feasible: the narrative seemed strangely anomalous and thus, NADOC’86. Cross-cultural relationships the exhibition as a whole carried the inadvertent such as these were part of the creative scene in proposition of the inherent separation of cultures. Sydney – and perhaps elsewhere, though the A not dissimilar anomaly could be seen in the 2015 evidence nationally is not yet clear. exhibition Photography and Australia, which, Cross-cultural stories of these kinds, each according to the curator, was ‘structured around unique, and based not on power relationships two major ideas or subjects: people and land (or but on friendship, solidarity and the desire to country)’ (Annear 2015:11). The representation understand another complex view, have been of Aborigines by commercial and scientific largely edited out of the photo histories and photographers of the past and by Indigenous curated exhibitions. The result is a hiatus in the photographers of the present constituted an historical narrative. Evidence for this can be seen important strand throughout the exhibition. Yet it displayed no photographs from the land-rights 11 Gemes was responding to requests from Tiga Bayles struggles of the 1970s and early 80s, nor is there from Koori Radio in Redfern and the politically and any reference to the photographers who were culturally active Watson and Cragie families, all of whom there. A rare voice in the literature acknowledging requested a Koorie photography workshop near Redfern. Versions of this period at the Tin Sheds difer, although all this period, it seems, is Jane Lydon’s recognition agree that Michael Riley followed Hart when he moved to that some non-Indigenous photographers – she Sydney College of the Arts in 1984. especially notes Gemes, Rhodes and Tweedie

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– were ‘driven by an intense desire to counter of the personal – more broadly reflects a general degrading historical imagery’ and, in the process, discomfort with the period. Frances Peters- ‘helped shift emphasis from the image’s content Little has used the word ‘prickly’ to describe to the relationship between photographer and perceptions of ‘Aboriginal public imagery, such subject’ (Lydon 2012:236–41).12 as activism’ (Peters-Little 2003:14). Is it remotely Why the difidence in giving recognition to possible that theoretically astute curators and land-rights photography of the seventies and historians, aware of whiteness theory, detect early eighties? One answer might be ‘shame’. By evidence of it in the photo archives, including 1982, not only were white Australians far more those by the contemporary photographers in aware than ever before of the arguments for After the Tent Embassy? Whiteness, it is claimed land rights, but the entire arts industry had been ‘is constitutive of the epistemology of the West; transformed, not least by the establishment of the it is an invisible regime of power that secures Indigenous-run Aboriginal Arts Board. Between hegemony through discourse’, and only through 1972 and 1982 the nation changed socially and careful analysis can we understand ‘the silence, artistically, and equity for Indigenous people normativity and invisibility of whiteness and its was very much on the agenda. Another answer power within the production of knowledge and might be ‘seduction’: NADOC’86 captured the representation’ (Moreton-Robinson 2004:75). imagination of the art industry – its dealers, Another way of putting it is: the ‘writer-knower critics and curators. Whether photojournalism as subject is racially invisible, while the Aboriginal (such as Bishop’s image of Whitlam and as object is visible’ (Moreton-Robinson 2004:81). Lingiari), images of family and friends (Brenda The problem is that evidence contradicts the L. Croft), poetic explorations of the land (Riley theory. Of course it is always possible for any and others), constructed stories (Tracey Mofatt) photographer to take refuge behind the camera – or the heady mixes of history and invention and assume invisibility. It is also possible to frame that were yet to emerge in the work of Brook the subject to suggest a wide gamut of positive Andrew, Christian Thompson, Genevieve or negative attributes. But none of this makes Grieves, Michael Cook and many others – any sense when looking at the works produced and all the approaches to Indigenous image- by the contemporary After the Tent Embassy making were henceforth firmly positioned as photographers, all of whom were engaged by art. The 1982 elisions between documentary and the communities to help spread the word that anthropological photography were gone. Could reform was overdue. Nor does whiteness theory it be that these twin sentiments of shame and work as an explanation of what we referred seduction lurk somewhere behind the systemic to above as systemic omissions: some authors omissions? have been black, some white, some curatorial Or could it be argued that today’s reluctance teams black or white, or both. Instead, we would in dealing with these images – of land argue, images generated by the photographers in rights, certainly, but also of long-established After the Tent Embassy demonstrate a common relationships that reached deep within the sphere purpose, a shared vision, with the Indigenous 12 For the record, De Lorenzo was probably the first to people. Whatever the mistakes of earlier look critically at this material – see De Lorenzo 1991, 1993. generations, in the seventies to mid eighties See also an unpublished thesis by Charlene Ogilvie (2007). (and beyond), the making and dissemination

15 De Lorenzo and Gemes – From resistance towards invisibility of images relating to self-determination, land changed forever the way Indigenous politics was rights, connections to land and community and enacted. The counterpart in the photographic new forms of cultural expression all reflected a representation of Indigenous rights activism consensual project between photographers and could be said to be September 1986. National communities. Indeed, it is worth recalling that drives for social justice shared by the white in 1993 when Langton published her famous photographers and black communities had shown essay on Indigenous representation in the media, it was possible to undermine ‘the deadweight she proposed a definition of Aboriginality that legacy of ethnographic documents and negative was essentially inter-personal, relational and media stereotypes’ (Newton 2006:48). It was driven by a desire for mutuality. ‘“Aboriginality”’, not that the challenges to a long and troubled Langton (1993:81) argued, ‘is remade over and history of Indigenous representation could then over again in a process of dialogue, imagination, cease, but that after September 1986 Indigenous representation and interpretation. Both photographers added into the mix personal and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people create aesthetic investigations that resonated with “Aboriginalities”.’ This generous and astute considerable opportunities provided by the art insight fully resonates with the imagery in After world. Transformations in terms of Indigenous the Tent Embassy. Today, however, it is rare to access to photographic know-how may have find this sentiment expressed in academic and been slow to get underway in the 1970s, but curatorial literature on photography relating to once change started it was decisive. Today, the the Aboriginal movement of the 1970s and 80s. immense diversity of robust work produced by It is time to reinsert into the discourse Langton’s Indigenous photographers reflects the benefits idea of an ‘intercultural dialogue’, a shared of art-school training, grants and sympathetic striving for Aboriginality – in this instance by curators, all of which were active from the mid both Aborigines and photographers desiring 1980s. justice – that so informed the period under We have drawn attention to a current lacuna discussion. in photo discourse so that elements of the bigger The cross-cultural interdependency that had narrative are not forgotten. The standpoint evolved over the years changed once there was a history of activism, inadvertently evident in the critical mass of trained black photographers. This work of activist photographers of the 1970s and was a trend understood and well received by all. 80s who welcomed Aboriginal people as their In any case, there was no going back to a moment teachers, is still in evidence today. These cross- of grass-roots activism that was becoming cultural modalities in photography warrant a passé. Sutton has pinpointed a conference in significant place in Australian photographic the far north Queensland town of Cairns in May history. Informed by this more complete history, 1991 as the moment when ‘the old rights-based future curators and historians can better explore progressivism’ in Queensland Indigenous political a more complex portrayal of the continuities thinking was eclipsed by new leaders with a ‘grasp within indigeneity and photography. of the complex pragmatics of governance’ (Sutton The new photography of the 70s and 80s that 2008:147). In Sutton’s estimation, May 1991 marks encapsulated cross-cultural knowledge is in the the moment when the compelling strategies major collections but has been ignored by some of Marcia Langton, Noel Pearson and others curators and writers.

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Acknowledgements Bennie, A. 2003. Charting the moves for justice. The authors would like to thank the peer Sydney Morning Herald (9 July):12. reviewers whose comments have enriched the Berndt, R.M. and Berndt, C.H. 1957. The Art of Arnhem paper. Land: An Exhibition of Australian Aboriginal Art. All images are by Juno Gemes, unless Arnhem Land Paintings on Bark and Carved Human otherwise indicated. Please be aware that some Figures. Arranged by the Anthropology Section of these photographs are of people who have of the University of Western Australia and the passed away. Western Australian Museum. Perth: Art Gallery Juno Gemes copyright courtesy: Juno Gemes of Western Australia, 24 December 1957 – 31 Archive; Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London; January 1958. Fireworks Gallery, Brisbane; Josef Lebovic Bishop, M. 1994. Looking back on thirty years. Gallery, Sydney. In A. Dewdney and S. Phillips (eds) Racism, Representation and Photograph. Sydney: Inner City References Education Centre. Aboriginal Arts Board (AAB). Press Statement Bojic, Z. 2003. Political images. Canberra Times (23 83, 3 May 1973, Prime Ministers’ Transcripts August):19. website: pmtranscripts.dpmc.gov.au/preview. Capa, C. 1972. The Concerned Photographer 2: the php?did=2908 (accessed 10 January 2015). photographs of Marc Riboud, Roman Vishniac, Bruce AIAS/Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Davidson, Gordon Parks, Ernst Haas, Hiroshi Hamaya, 1983. After the Tent Embassy: Aboriginal history Donald McCullin, W. Eugene Smith (ed.) C. Capa. since 1972 in b&w photographs. Art Network New York: Grossman Publishers in collaboration 9:30–1. with The International Fund for Concerned Aird, M. (ed) 1993. Portraits of our Elders. South Photography, Inc. Brisbane: Queensland Museum. Coombs, H.C., Keane, M., O’Shane, P., Williams, T., Alexander, G. and Gemes, J. 1982. Land (essay) and Thomas, T., Miller, M., Gilbert, K., Lowe, D., Albert, artist’s statement. In We Want No More. Sydney: S., and Dugong, L. 1979. Printed transcripts Hogarth Galleries and Apmira. nla.gov.au/nla.pic- of talks from Aboriginal Land Rights Teach- vn6617276. In, Sydney University, City Road, Merewether Annear, J. 2015. The Photograph and Australia. Sydney: Building, 17–18 March. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Croft, B.L. (ed.) 2006. Michael Riley: Sights Unseen. Anon, 1982. Apmira. Art Network 7: 59–60. Canberra: National Gallery of Australia. Apmira, 1982. ‘After the tent embassy’: an exhibition ——— 2012. Changing times, timing changes. In mock up of photographs. State Library of New M. Fitzgerald (ed.) Making Change. Paddington South Wales, MLMSS 9593. (Sydney): Australian Centre for Photography. Apmira archives: trove.nla.gov.au/work/32065177?s Davies, G. 2012. ‘Taking to the streets of electedversion=NBD44320493. Brisbane’, Independent Australia (7 October): Australia Council. 1985. Annual Report. Canberra: independentaustralia.net/politics/politics- Australian Government Publishing Service. display/taking-to-the-streets-of-brisbane,4572. Batchen, G. and Mofat, T. 1986. NADOC ’86 exhibition De Lorenzo, C. 1991. The imaging of Aborigines: of Aboriginal and Islander photographers. commitment to land rights, History of Photography Photofile 4:24–2. 15 (3):228–35.

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